Sughra Raza. Untitled. Sidewalk Series. 2009.

Digital photograph.

Peter Dreier over at TPM Cafe:

Political talk shows on TV are usually just shouting matches among journalists, academics, former politicians and others. Their “debate” is usually filled with clichés, not substance. This is especially true when discussing the economy, which “experts” tend to mystify rather than clarify, as though the economy operates on supply-and-demand auto-pilot, instead of being shaped by the decisions of corporate leaders, large-scale investors, and government officials.

But the debate between Stiglitz and Moore about the stock market — brief as it was — was important. And Stiglitz nailed it. The stock market is not a good indicator of the effectiveness of public policy, especially in response to announcements by government officials about new initiatives. The reliance by TV and radio newscasters, newspaper reporters and columnists, and quick-with-a-conclusion pundits on the stock market to assess the merits of a policy prescription, or even the health of the economy, is incredibly misleading.

Yet every night on the evening TV news, on National Public Radio, and elsewhere, we get reports on how the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ indices are doing — as though that tells us something about the strength of the economy. All it tells us is how stock traders and speculators are reacting to something they haven't had time or inclination to find out about. It's no accident that, according to the thesaurus, “speculation” is just another word for “rumor” and “gossip.”

The obsession with the stock market as an indicator of economic health reflects the problem that Obama identified in his speech to Congress:

“We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election.”

Nick Smyth over at his blog Yeah, OK, but Still:

Robert Musil's The Perfecting of A Love is a short story which contains a very interesting argument. According to Catherine Wilson's (1984) reading, anyway, Musil's character Claudine realizes the power of the following set of thoughts:

1. Either love is an earthly desire or attitude towards another, or it is not of this world, transcendental in some way.
2. If love is an earthly desire or attitude, then it is always possible that a stronger, more urgent, more present desire will overwhelm it and cause betrayal.
3. But true, actual love cannot be this contingent. It cannot be destroyed by the formation of some new desire.
4. Therefore (by 1 and 3) love is not a desire, it is a transcendental state, not of this world.
5. However, if love is not a desire, if love does not participate in the realm of earthly motivation, then an action taken from desire cannot be a betrayal of love, for love and desire are categorically different things.

Claudine, a married woman in love with her husband, allows a stranger to make love to her and is at first tormented by her infidelity. But the force of (5) strikes her and she realizes that she has not, in fact, betrayed her husband. She still loves him and this silly reversion of hers does not, indeed cannot affect that reality.

An audio interview over at Philosophy Bites:

Is the ultimate nature of reality non-physical? Keith Ward, who believes that it is, discusses the idealist traditions in Eastern and Western philosophy in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast.

Listen to Keith Ward on Idealism in Eastern and Western Philosophy

Bibliography of Keith Ward's writing

Andrew Sullivan points us to this Bill Moyers interview with Karen Armstrong:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Let me say this. In our discourse, it is not enough for us in the western democratic tradition simply to seek the truth. We also have to defeat and humiliate our opponents. And that happens in politics. It happens in the law courts. It happens in religious discourse. It happens in the media. It happens in academia. Very different from Socrates, the founder of the rationalist tradition, who when you had dialogues with Socrates, you came thinking that you knew what you were talking about.

Half an hour later, with Socrates, you realized you didn't know anything at all. And at that moment, says Socrates, your– quest can begin. You can become a philosopher, a lover of wisdom because you know you don't have wisdom. You love it. You seek it. And you had to go into a dialogue prepared to change, not to bludgeon your conversation partner into accepting your point of view. And every single point in a Socratic dialogue, you offer your opinion kindly to the other, and the other accepts it with kindness.

BILL MOYERS: But you can't have a dialogue with people who don't want to have-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: No.

BILL MOYERS: -a dialogue.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: But that doesn't mean we should give up altogether. Because I think the so called liberals can also be just as hard lined in their own way.

The Habits of Guilt
Aidan Murphy

It summons up schooldays in the abattoir.
It scalds your lungs with unwanted smoke.
as it thumbs up your eyelids in the small hours
chaining you to the bleakest sounds
of wind, rain and broken homes.

Smooching beside you
with its tongue in your ear, it somehow whispers,
if you weren’t so dumb in the first place
I wouldn’t be here; then, gargling
a barrel of nails it staggers from bed
with sleep-yellow eyes and insecticide veins.

On the verge of your most brilliant punchlines
it cackles, bursting into brazen mockery,
ripping the airvalves of your resources,
completing the ruin of your confidence.

But it can be so nice to come home to . . .

with its pipe and slippers and cosseting cushions
dispensing permission to weep indulgently
as its barbs inflict delicious pain.

From lensculture:

American Pop photographer David LaChapelle is in the art-world spotlight this year, with a big mid-career retrospective exhibition in Paris (February 6 – May 31), and a simultaneous solo show that just opened in Mexico City.

His work is over-the-top, which is often appropriate for his subject matter — celebrities, sex, drugs, money, greed, high-fashion and excess of all kinds. Recently, he's been applying his characteristic style to a wide range of other themes like war and the media, spirituality, natural disasters, floods and hurricanes, conspicuous consumption, fossil fuels and carbon footprints, old master artworks and surrealism.

As in any retrospective, there is a large variety of work, and the presentation of different phases of LaChapelle’s art is well-suited to the grand halls and majestic rooms of this opulent old building. (La Monnaie de Paris, the Parisian museum of coins and currency, is a shrine to the ideas of money and war medallions.)

More here.

Pervez Hoodbhoy in Frontline:

Total separation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists. Two decades ago the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu; it is a foreign import. But today, some shops in Islamabad specialise in abaya. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, female students are seeking the anonymity of the burqa. Such students outnumber their sisters who still dare show their faces.

While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the path. Those with beards and burqas are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine, and so on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims or, if faced by incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression. Faced with the embarrassment that 200 schools for girls were blown up in Swat by Fazlullah’s militants, they wriggle out by saying that some schools were housing the Pakistan Army, who should be targeted anyway.

More here. (Note: Thanks to Iqbal Riza).

These are tough times for the American Dream. As the safe routines of our lives have come undone, so has our characteristic optimism—not only our belief that the future is full of limitless possibility, but our faith that things will eventually return to normal, whatever “normal” was before the recession hit. There is even worry that the dream may be over—that we currently living Americans are the unfortunate ones who shall bear witness to that deflating moment in history when the promise of this country began to wither. This is the “sapping of confidence” that President Obama alluded to in his inaugural address, the “nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.” But let’s face it: If Moss Hart, like so many others, was able to rally from the depths of the Great Depression, then surely the viability of the American Dream isn’t in question. What needs to change is our expectation of what the dream promises—and our understanding of what that vague and promiscuously used term, “the American Dream,” is really supposed to mean.

more from Vanity Fair here.

How do I introduce my Roomba to my parents?

Make sure your parents are sitting down. Tell them you know this sounds unusual, but Roomba, despite what they think, is a really special robot and gets along great with the kids. If your father starts saying, “No daughter of mine is going to …,” tell him he's being a narrow-minded technophobe.

What happens when I leave my Roomba home alone?

Roomba may or may not go through your things, sample your perfume, and call your ex-husband, pretending to be you.

What do I do if I get a higher than usual monthly cable bill with several adult pay-per-view titles charged to my account?

Calmly ask Roomba if you can have a word with it. Tell it you understand it's curious—it's only natural—but that the pay-per-views have to stop.

more from McSweeney's here.

Naomi Wolf in Project Syndicate:

In one week, Michelle Obama sat for a formal White House portrait, dressed in somber, tailored clothes; posed for a snazzy People magazine cover, dressed in a slightly down-market, hot-pink lace outfit that showed plenty of skin; let the national media know that the First Family would be getting its new puppy from a rescue shelter; and had her press office mention casually that “secretaries and policy makers” had been invited for popcorn and movies at the White House.

That same week, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930’s, a national poll found that support for President Barack Obama was remarkably high, with respondents consistently saying that he “cares about people like me.”

These two phenomena are closely related. Almost from her first appearance in the public eye, Michelle Obama has used clothing, etiquette, and such cues as where she shops and entertains to send out a subtle but radical message to American voters and to the world. For the first time since the days of Andrew Jackson, the White House is aggressively “democratizing” the highest office in the land, and symbolically inviting in the common man – and now the common woman.

In other words, Mrs. Obama is managing to set herself up, unprecedentedly, as the “people’s First Lady.” She has carefully studied not only Jackie Kennedy – a comparison obvious from her sheath dresses, boat collars, and page-boy haircut – but also the triumphs and failures of that other glamorous but underestimated stealth radical, Princess Diana.

Princess Di’s legacy in generating iconography that opened the way to tremendous social change is grossly underappreciated.

Eleanor Burnhill in the Edniburgh Review:

And there are other, less highly organised individuals, storytellers, musicians, dancers, ‘local characters’ etc, who are occasionally called upon to give performances. All such people act effectively as curators or custodians of the culture on behalf of the wider ethnic group.1

As those studying tourism marketing note, most research shows fear and insecurity are major barriers to travel.

For years Northern Ireland, and its capital Belfast, was a tourism wilderness filled with ‘anxiety and journalists’ but, like weeds and wild flowers growing out of cracks in a pavement, a tentative tourism industry that recognised the ‘curiosity’ factor of the Troubles began to grow in the early 1990s. Much of this was led by local community groups in areas most affected by the conflict. Perhaps uniquely in a European city, taxi drivers adapted their businesses to take tourists on political tours.

Nowadays, however, a much wider tourism industry in Belfast is thriving, despite years of underfunding, and visitor numbers have returned to a level not experienced since the late 1960s. Ten years after the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which signalled a period of tentative peace for Northern Ireland, and in the two months before the March 7th elections for a new Legislative Assembly, I interviewed representatives from each of the four main political parties: the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), who traditionally represent unionists, and the main nationalist parties Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). I also interviewed those involved in community tourism and taxi drivers themselves, to find out what role they thought political tourism should have into the future.

Most agreed that the Troubles do have a role in Belfast’s tourism product, but unsurprisingly for a state so divided by political tensions, there are divergent opinions about how this should be presented and marketed as a draw for visitors.

The Immanent Frame has interesting discussion on Nicholas Wolsterstorff’s Justice: Rights and Wrongs. David Johnston:

Martha C. Nussbaum in Boston Review:

As it became clear that Pakistani Muslims perpetrated the horrendous terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November, many feared a wave of violence against India’s own Muslim community. The community, which represents 13.4 percent of Hindu–majority India, suffers from poverty and systemic discrimination, as the government’s recent Sachar Commission report documents. It has also been targeted by the Hindu right, which, in 2002, murdered as many as 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, in the state of Gujarat.

That violence, like the violence of Hindu–right mobs against Christians in the eastern state of Orissa in 2008, surely deserves the name of “terrorism.” Yet, in India as elsewhere, the word “terrorism” is now frequently confined to the actions of Muslims, and Muslims are suspects almost by virtue of their religion alone. There was reason, then, to fear that mobs would take the Mumbai blasts as the occasion for a renewed assault on an already beleaguered minority.

This assault did not materialize—largely because India’s Muslim community strongly condemned the terrorist acts and immediately took steps to demonstrate its loyalty to the nation. Muslim cemeteries refused burial to the perpetrators. Muslims wore black armbands on Eid, showing solidarity with mourners of all religions and nationalities. The world saw a deeply nationalist community, one loyal to the liberal values of a nation that has yet to treat it justly.

It was not the first time India’s Muslims have demonstrated a peaceful embrace of the country’s founding values. The personal experience of Mushirul Hasan exemplifies the same commitment.

From The Guardian:

Aatish Taseer grew up in secular, pluralist India. His early influences included his mother's Sikhism, a Christian boarding school, and He-Man cartoons. Nagging behind this cultural abundance, however, was an absence: of his estranged father, the Pakistani politician Salmaan Taseer.

The best of Stranger to History is the son's journey of the subtitle: the movement towards – and away from – his father's world. Taseer describes the embarrassment, frustration and occasional joy of meeting his father and half-siblings, and of approaching a cultural and national identity which painfully excludes him. Alternating with this story is a more generalised journey into Islam, from the Leeds suburb that produced the 7/7 bombers, through Istanbul, Damascus and Mecca, to Iran and Pakistan. On the way Taseer observes the “cartoon riots”, is interrogated by Iranian security officials and watches the response in his father's Lahore home to Benazir Bhutto's assassination. The writing is elegant and fluent throughout, the characters skilfully drawn.

In Pakistan Taseer concentrates on particularities, and here his writing is particularly good. His descriptions of rural Sindh and the troubled feudal landowner he finds there are unforgettable. By depicting the homes deserted by the Hindu middle class and the crumbling shrines where Hindus and Muslims once prayed together, he makes his parents' separation an image of the rupture of partition, one of the two great ethnic cleansings of 1947 whose effects still plague us all. For Taseer, unified, diverse India becomes a father-sized absence.

More here.

James Traub in The New York Times:

SOWING CRISIS: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East

By Rashid Khalidi

Had the White House aides who scripted Barack Obama’s remarks to Al Arabiya television in January consulted Rashid Khalidi’s latest work beforehand, the president might not have so blithely vowed to restore the “respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago.” In “Sowing Crisis,” Khalidi, who holds the Edward Said chair of Arab studies at Columbia and is a major pro-Palestinian voice in American scholarship, argues that Washington’s drive for hegemonic control over the geostrategic and oil-rich axis of the Middle East stretches back three-quarters of a century, and has continued unabated to this day.

Khalidi’s central argument is that the Bush administration’s interventionist posture toward the Middle East is no mere post-9/11 aberration, but represents an especially bellicose expression of a longstanding campaign. Today’s enemy is terrorism; yesterday’s was Communism. And just as the threat of Communism was wildly exaggerated 50 years ago, so, these days, “the global war on terror is in practice an American war in the Middle East against a largely imaginary set of enemies.” ­Khalidi’s point is not that American policy toward the Middle East has been consistently hys­terical; rather, he says, it has been consis­tently cynical, exploiting an apocalyptic sense of threat in order to achieve the kind of dominance to which great powers, what­ever their rhetoric, aspire.

More here.